In race for coronavirus vaccine, hurled insults and the wisdom of Spider-Man - CNN - 0 views
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Ethicists and physicians are concerned that, amid a desire to put an end to the Covid-19 pandemic, developers of drugs and vaccines have become overly enthusiastic about the chances their products will work.
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Oxford has recently walked back some of its optimism, but for months, it set a tone that its vaccine was the most promising, without any solid evidence that this was based in fact.
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Third, one leader in the Oxford team has gone so far as to denigrate other teams trying to get a Covid vaccine on the market, calling their technology "weird" and labeling it as merely "noise." Such name-calling is highly unusual and aggressive among scientists.
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"At this point, the Oxford researchers have no idea whether they have something or not," Offit said. "You just get so tired of this 'science by press release.' "
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There are currently 10 vaccines in human clinical trials worldwide, according to the World Health Organization. Four of the teams are in the United States: Moderna, Pfizer, Inovio and Novavax.
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Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel referred to the results as "positive interim Phase 1 data" and that "the Moderna team continues to focus on moving as fast as safely possible to start our pivotal Phase 3 study in July."
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Moderna is collaborating on its vaccine development with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of NIAID, said while Moderna's numbers were limited, "it was good news" and he was "cautiously optimistic" about the vaccine.
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Inovio and Moderna have said they expect their large-scale clinical trials, known as Phase 3 trials, to last around six months. Pfizer hasn't given a timetable for its Phase 3 trial.
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"I've not seen anyone wrap up a Phase 3 trial in a month to six weeks," said Dr. Saad Omer, a Yale University infectious disease expert who's done clinical trials on polio, pertussis and influenza vaccines. "We need to benchmark this against realistic expectations."
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One big stumbling block for any vaccine trial is that Covid-19 infection rates in many areas of the world are flattening out or declining.
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The Oxford vaccine uses what's called an adenovirus vector. Adenoviruses cause the common cold, but in this case, the adenoviruses are weakened and modified to deliver genetic material that codes for a protein from the novel coronavirus. The body then produces that protein and, ideally, develops an immune response to it.
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"Compared to previous vaccines, this method is more robust, more versatile, and yet, equally efficient," according to the blog, which notes that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation invested $53 million in a German biotech company that specializes in RNA vaccines.
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Inovio's technology uses a brief electrical pulse to deliver plasmids, or small pieces of genetic information, into human cells. Inovio says those cells then produce the vaccine, which leads to an immune response.
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On April 19, the BBC's Andrew Marr said he asked Gilbert "if it's guaranteed that a workable vaccine can actually be produced."
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"Nobody can be absolutely sure it's possible. That's why we have to do trials. We have to find out. I think the prospects are very good, but it's clearly not completely certain,"
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"It certainly worked in monkeys," Oxford's Hill told CNN's Burnett May 15. "That was quite an impressive impact and that was our first try, if you like, with a standard dose, a single dose of vaccine."
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"I buy that this is a pandemic and we may need to show progress and show steps, and I'm OK with making forecasts if decision makers want that, but do it with a level of uncertainty, because that's what's warranted," said Omer, director of the Yale Institute for Global Health.
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"Now researchers can't wait to step out to the microphone -- and there are so many microphones out there -- to say, 'I've got it! This looks really good!' " Offit said.